Rededication
by Wandergirl108
Summary: One last lifetime for everyone; one last chance for a rededication of souls to hold any meaning. They're rare, but everyone likes an excuse to party…and some might want to celebrate the masquerade the proper way, just to be absolutely sure that what they think they feel is real.
1. Rebirth

I could see everything.

All the paths every soul would take - who would be reborn when, what gender they'd be…all of the oldsouls were going to be what they originally were - the gender they'd been when they first bound themselves to Janan. One last rebirth for each of them, even those still alive now - the fire was enough to give them that, but no more. Because Janan wasn't putting oldsouls in the place of newsouls, newsouls and oldsouls would coexist for several generations, being birthed at near-equal rates. Oddly enough, Meuric would get another lifetime, too, even though his skeleton was gone.

And me. There was enough fire for everyone plus me.

_Sam._

One lifetime with him, with music - not an eternity, but more than I could have dared hope for.

I was about to put myself a few years after the last birth he'd have, when I noticed that Tera and Ash were both going to be female. I thought of how they used to kill each other when they were born the same gender…but this would be their _last_ lifetime…

I nudged Ash's birth into a different spot on the timeline, switching her place with a newsoul so she'd be male. He and Tera would be five years apart - not a terrible gap, all things considered. Maybe it wasn't fair to the newsoul, but I couldn't let love like what Tera and Ash had be ruined for the last lifetime they'd live.

Then, I refocused on the new place I'd picked, and plunged into new life. No pain, no waiting - just a new place in time.

~o~

The first flash of blinding light on my new eyes was agony. I screamed involuntarily, squeezing my eyes shut. An infant's wail screeched in my sensitive ears. It took a minute for me to realize the scream was mine.

Reborn.

I forced my eyes open, trying to fight the agony. Something closed over my entire forearm, and my hand pressed against something smooth and cold. Voices surrounded me, but I couldn't focus enough to decipher any of them.

Shapes came into focus. A woman's face. Not looking at me, at someone to her side. A question on her face.

_Oldsoul or newsoul?_

Soul scanning was still in practice - the Soul Tellers now had the extra job of keeping track of the oldsouls that were reborn, to know how many were still left to live again.

Sounds. Words I didn't catch. I realized my soul wasn't in the database, so I'd register as a newsoul. Who had birthed me? What would she think? Would she be like Lidea, or would she be like Li? For a moment, I wished Li hadn't been a Darksoul - I wished she could know how wrong she'd been.

The face twisted with shock, outrage, something else…whoever my new mother was, she didn't want a newsoul.

She'd probably be even angrier when she found out it was me.

It was going to be a long quindec.

~o~

My mother and her partner didn't bother to name me. They didn't know what to call me; maybe they hoped I'd name myself when I was old enough. Just as well.

Getting my new body to obey me wasn't easy. I cried often, as much as a true newsoul would have, mainly out of frustration. My new parents didn't suspect a thing.

It wasn't until a month after I'd been reborn that I noticed what my parents and the Soul Tellers hadn't. Late at night, in the dark of my room, trying and failing to sleep, I saw a glow flash in front of my eyes. I flailed for a while, trying to see it again; it crossed my vision wildly. I struggled and focused, then suddenly realized it was my hands. My hands were glowing.

I struggled a bit more, trying to get a better look. No, it wasn't my hands, it was just my palms. Images of chains glowed across both.

The chains. They'd burned into my soul somehow. From the fire?

~o~

Wend was my mother.

When I finally figured that out, I realized what that other thing in her expression had been when she heard I was a newsoul: shame. Because of Anid. But because of how wrong s/he'd been? Or because s/he had now brought two newsouls into the world?

My father, like Menehem, was never around, leaving Wend to take care of me on her own; maybe Menehem _was_ my father again. Wend did a better job than Li had, but she still wasn't the most attentive or loving mother - and this time, there were no sylph to help me in the extreme temperatures of summer and winter. Fortunately, I got to stay in Heart while I grew back up, so there were automated temperature-regulating machines to take care of me instead.

Words failed me for the longest time, but I tried to show Wend my palms whenever I saw her. She didn't notice. I struggled against my infant body to speak - the sooner I cleared things up, the sooner I'd get a more oldsoul-based treatment, and I didn't like making Wend waste her time, no matter how poor a job she did. After all, she only had one lifetime left.

At last, something in my body shifted, and I was able to force words out. It was exhausting, but I pushed through and finally spoke to my new mother:

"I'm Ana. Not…new. _Ana_."

My words were unclear, infantile, but I was able to make them. Wend's eyes widened. "Ana?" she gasped.

"Yes," I managed. "I've…been…reborn." The effort of speaking made my vision swim, but I fought to stay conscious. I _needed_ to be conscious for this.

But I shouldn't have bothered. A thousand things flashed through Wend's eyes, and then she ran from the room, dialing a number on her SED. I knew I should have worried about who she was calling and what she was going to tell them, but I couldn't stay awake.

I passed out.

~o~

Meuric was my father.

I found out later that Meuric was grateful to Wend for staying loyal to the oldsouls and turning on Anid and me, and Genealogy said they could have a child. There were oldsoul-only communities and newsoul-focused communities - a waste, I thought, since everyone was in the same boat with only one life left to live, but some of the oldsouls, like Meuric, were very bitter - and Meuric and Wend shared a home in an oldsoul-only community. A lot of oldsouls were still being reborn, so they had figured they'd probably have one.

Instead, they got me.

Meuric probably would have killed me, but he wasn't the first person Wend told. The council was informed first, and while Meuric was still on the council, he was no longer the Speaker - the Speaker was an oldsoul named Nima. The issue of what I'd done in overthrowing Janan was a debate, and of course Meuric strongly advocated my imprisonment - which was now a far more serious offense, given that we all only had one lifetime left, and to waste all of it in jail would be the worst fate that could befall anyone - but in the end, I was deemed not guilty of any crime, and Meuric was ordered to leave me be, with the threat of imprisonment if he harmed me. So, for my second lifetime, I grew up without a father.

It wasn't until I was ten years old that Wend confided in me that she'd joined the oldsoul-only community because seeing newsouls made her feel terrible shame for betraying me and her son on the grounds of newsouls being 'unnatural'. I told her I forgave her, since s/he had been under Janan's control at the time. She was a much better mother than Li had been, especially after that.

While my old body had been short, my new body was tall and slender, with long dark hair and blue eyes like sapphires. Every time I saw my eyes in the mirror, I remembered staring into the huge blue eyes of a dragon. It was strange to look in the mirror and see a different face than I was used to, but I became accustomed to it as years went on. The glowing scars on my palms grew with my hands to retain their pattern as my hands got bigger, reinforcing my idea that the scars were on my soul, not my physical hands.

I knew Sam was somewhere in Heart, just a couple of years older than me, but I didn't go looking for him until I was old enough - a new law had been instated, forbidding intimate partnerships between oldsouls and newsouls unless the newsouls were old enough to fully understand what such a partnership entailed and mature enough to make a sensible decision on the matter. What exactly qualified as 'old enough' was a subject of debate, but 18 years old was the generally accepted figure. I technically wasn't a newsoul, but I technically wasn't an oldsoul either, so to be safe, I stayed with Wend until I'd passed my first quindec.

Finally, on my fifteenth birthday, I left home to explore the other areas of Heart, and maybe claim a house of my own. The white walls of the city no longer had a heartbeat, and were no longer indestructible, either - where the walls had broken, black obsidian had been used to repair the cracks. It was almost funny; now that Janan was gone, I was able to lament the fact that the walls of the houses in Heart could be broken.

Where the temple itself had been, there stood a huge memorial of what people called Phoenix Night: An enormous statue of a phoenix, carved from obsidian, wreathed with flowers of every color. I hadn't seen it before; it was beautiful. Just looking at it reminded me of the bottomless black of a live phoenix's eyes…and my song.

I sat down and took my flute out of my backpack. The flute Sam had made for me didn't fit my new body, but while the piano was an amazing instrument, the flute was my favorite, so Wend had given me a new one for my quindec. A gift from my mother was no less precious to me than a gift from Sam, if for different reasons.

I sat down in front of the memorial, positioned my flute, and played my four notes. The rest of the waltz flowed naturally from them, almost playing itself.

Ana Incarnate: A Variant on the Phoenix Song.

The new, full name was a bit less personal to me, but it was more accurate, and people still called it 'Ana Incarnate' for short.

Lost in the music, my eyes wandered. Some people passing by turned to look at me as I played - some with smiles, some with frowns. I couldn't tell if the frowns were because I was playing it badly and the smiles were for what it meant, or if the smiles were because I was playing it well and the frowns were for what it meant.

But towards the end, a man with white-blond hair and fair skin reddened from the sun caught my attention, walking straight towards the memorial, a wild look in his eyes. He looked at me, and I knew.

I smiled even as I played. I hadn't even had to look for him; he had come to me.

I didn't stop playing as he climbed the steps to meet me. I played the four notes, and only then did I set my flute aside and stand up. We looked into each other's eyes for a minute. His expression was what I imagined mine had been the first time I'd heard him play the piano, afraid to ask what I already knew: his name. Dossam.

"Is it really you?" he asked breathlessly.

I met his eyes, but I didn't say a word. I'd known right away; surely he had, too.

A strangled cry escaped him, and he grabbed me in a tight hug all at once. "I've been too afraid to hope," he told me in a pained whisper. "I've missed you so much."

I hugged him back. I'd missed him, too. When we finally let go, I smiled and showed him my palms. The phoenix statue behind me cast enough shadow to show their glow.

We both had a whole lifetime ahead of us, together.

I leaned in close and whispered, "I've been reborn."


	2. Reunion

"Sam!"

Sam blinked as a man's booming voice called to him across the marketfield. He glanced behind him, then turned back to me. "Stef," he explained.

My eyes widened. I hadn't forgotten Stef, how much I'd missed her after she died just before the events of Phoenix Night, but Sam had been predominant in my thoughts. Now that I'd found him, I could find my friends again, too. Other faces came back to me: Sarit, Cris, Whit, Armande, Orrin…

A large man came up to me and Sam; he was focused on Sam, but he noticed me as he climbed the steps to the memorial.

Sam turned to him, his face alight with joy. "Look who I found!" he said.

The man stared at me. I stared at him. I remembered that Stef was meant to be male, and though this body was so different, a hint of familiar practiced grace hung about him…

"Stef?" I asked, tears coming to my eyes. "Is it really you?"

Stef blinked. "Are you…?"

"It's Ana!" Sam couldn't contain his elation. "She came back!"

I smiled and showed Stef my palms. She had died before Janan had even risen, but surely he knew about what happened.

Stef's eyes widened. "Ana…" he breathed.

I couldn't help myself - I leapt at him and hugged him tightly. "I missed you," I whispered. "I can't believe you're here."

Stef hugged me back, no trace of our argument in his manner. "I missed you too," he said. "Thank you…for everything."

I turned to Sam, my eyes wide. "Sarit?" I asked. "Cris, Whit, Orrin…?"

Sam smiled. "Orrin hasn't been reborn yet, but Cris, Sarit, and Whit are all here," he told me. "Armande is, too."

"Here?" I asked, almost dizzy. "You mean, _here_ here?"

Sam grinned and put his arm around me. "Come on," he said, taking me through the market crowd, Stef at my other side.

Armande's stall was there, that permanent fixture that was so much a part of Heart. The man selling pastries looked different, certainly, but he had that same enthusiasm for his job as ever. At a nearby table sat a woman and two men, all a few years past their first quindec. That was where Sam and Stef brought me.

"Look who we found!" Sam told the three.

I stared at them. They stared back. I could only guess at the identities of the two men, but…The woman had mousy brown hair, and her skin wasn't very dark, but there was a light in her eyes, a bubbling energy that practically radiated off her.

"Sarit?" I asked her. "Is that you?"

The woman's eyes widened. "Are you…?"

"It's me," I told her, smiling, tears burning in my eyes. "It's me, Ana."

Sarit gasped, then leapt out of her chair and threw herself at me, engulfing me in a tremendous hug. I hugged her back, laughing.

"I can't believe it's you!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Ana, we've missed you! We didn't know if you were going to come back!"

"I came back," was all I could say. "I'm here."

"Not a butterfly after all," said one of the men; the other stood, as though getting in line behind Sarit to hug me.

I disentangled myself from Sarit's embrace and turned to the one who had stood. I couldn't quite tell based on how he carried himself, but there was something in his eyes as he looked at me… "Cris?" I breathed, almost not daring to believe it.

He grinned. "Thank you, Ana."

I hugged him, not wildly. Having my other friends back was one thing, but for Cris to be _here_, alive, more than just a burning shadow…It was proof that Phoenix Night hadn't been in vain. "I'm so glad you're here," I told him.

"Me too," he said.

I laughed and let him go, then turned to the other man. There was only one other person he could be. "Whit?" I asked.

He nodded, smiling.

_Everyone_ was smiling.

"Where have you been?" asked Sarit, sitting back down and tugging my arm so I would join her.

I sat as Cris, Stef, and Sam took their seats, too. "I've been in one of those oldsoul-only parts of the city," I told her. I hesitated, then added, "Wend is my mother now."

There was silence for a moment. Then, everyone burst out laughing. I did, too.

"Of all the people!" Stef said, chuckling. "I wouldn't have expected her and Menehem to-"

"Oh, Menehem isn't my father this time," I told him.

"Really?" Sarit asked, catching her breath.

"Those of us who were actually the children of others when we first started being reincarnated almost always have the same parents," Whit said. "The soul-tellers have noticed that everyone coming back is coming back as the gender they first were, so…"

I shook my head. "Nope, it's not Menehem," I said.

"Who, then?" asked Cris.

I looked around the table at everyone, grinning. "It's Meuric."

Everyone exclaimed at once, shocked. I just smiled. I'd come to terms with it years ago; he hadn't bothered me, so I didn't care. "It's a good thing I'm used to not growing up with a father," I said. "The Council ordered him to stay away from me, so he hasn't bothered me."

"Of all the parents you could have had," Stef said, shaking his head.

"Wend was a better mother than Li," I told them. "She felt bad about what happened." I showed them the flute she'd given me for my quindec before I left that morning. I also showed them my scars, told them about my rebirth, and then they started telling me about their own reincarnation in return…It was amazing, how easily we all slid into talking and catching up, as though we'd never been apart.

As we talked, though, I couldn't help but notice that Cris and Sarit seemed more than just friendly with each other, and I felt a bit of unease. Hadn't Cris said he would always be in love with Sam? Not that I wasn't glad he was able to move on, but for someone who had claimed to love another person beyond a single incarnation, I couldn't help but be bothered when he and Sarit flirted.

~o~

When it got so late that we were falling asleep even as we talked and laughed, Sam and I said goodbye to our friends and went back to his house. I was curious, almost afraid, to see what it looked like now, after everything that had happened years ago. But when Sam opened the door, it looked exactly the way it had before the Year of Souls began, including…

"Your piano!" I exclaimed, running over to the huge, beautiful instrument, unmistakable even in the dark. "Sam, how did…?"

"Orrin," Sam told me, smiling as he turned on the lights. "When he and the others came back to Heart to rebuild, he got together all the parts and had it made for me." He practically glowed as he spoke, and I smiled, too. That piano had been so precious, it was amazing that Orrin would go to all that trouble.

The parlor looked exactly the same, beautiful and comforting and full of musical instruments. But after a moment, something very unsettling struck me: Neither Sam nor I looked anything like we had before. I remembered how many partners would only be together and love each other for one lifetime, then stop when they were reborn - how Tera and Ash were a rare, rare exception. And then there was that spark I'd seen between Sarit and Cris, a man who had professed undying love to Sam…

My grin faded.

"Ana?" Sam asked, taking a step towards me. "What's wrong?"

I didn't want to ask, but… "Sam…our flesh has changed."

Incredibly, he laughed. "Yes it has," he said. "Five thousand years later, and it still takes some getting used to, but-"

"Have your feelings changed?" I blurted out. "I mean…for me?"

His smile dropped, as though a switch had been flipped. "I…" He shook his head like he couldn't believe I was asking. "Ana, I've missed you so much," he told me. "Missing you…it carried over while I waited to be reborn, and I've felt it every moment this entire lifetime - it was an ache in my soul. When I dream, I dream of the last time I saw you, when you gave up the light." He walked over to me, so close. "I love you, Ana," he said. "I think, even if you'd been a boy this time around, I would still love you."

His words warmed me, but my mind refused to rest. _'I think'? He should _know_…_

"Why?" he asked. "Have your feelings changed?"

I blinked, shaking my thoughts away, and looked at him. I had to look down at him instead of up, at his fair skin and blond hair. He looked so different…and yet, looking at him made me feel exactly the same as it had before. Before, I had thought that I wouldn't be able to even imagine being with any Sam but the one I'd known, but now… "No," I told him. "I love you. I've always loved you…your soul." I hesitated, then said, "When…Stef and Cris and I were trapped in the Temple…" Sam cringed, but said nothing. "When we were in the chamber full of skeletons…There were a million skeletons, all completely bare of flesh, and I hadn't been there five thousand years before when you bound yourselves to Janan…but still, I could tell which skeleton was yours." I forced a smile and made a weak attempt at humor. "I could see you, just like the dragons could see the Phoenix Song in you."

"Maybe that _was_ what you saw," Sam said.

But I shook my head. "No, I saw _you_," I told him with certainty. "I love you."

"Ana…" He trailed off. For a moment, I thought he was trying to think of how to respond, but then I noticed that he wasn't standing entirely steady.

"It's late," I said, ending the moment. "Let's go to sleep."

"I'm not _that_ tired," he argued, but he didn't have the energy to put much force behind the words.

I smiled at how Sam-like the gesture was. Some things didn't change between bodies. "I missed you, Sam," I told him. "Come on."

~o~

When I woke up in Sam's arms early the next morning, for a moment, I could almost imagine that Phoenix Night and the events leading up to it had never happened. It felt so normal, so right. But the feeble illusion shattered when I registered that I was still taller than him.

I got up, careful not to wake him. It was almost strange, how he looked so different, yet disentangling myself from his arms didn't _feel_ different. It also didn't feel different to follow the morning routine of taking a shower, getting dressed, going downstairs, and making coffee.

I took my coffee into the parlor. I'd left my flute down here, but the piano…of all the instruments, Sam's piano was the most precious, and here it was. It wasn't the same piano, of course, but it was just as beautiful as the old one had been. Sort of like how, even in a different body, Sam was still Sam, and I was still me.

I smiled at the thought, then sat down on the bench and set my coffee beside me. It took some adjusting to find a proper posture with my new height. _At least it will be easier to reach the pedals,_ I thought, not that it had ever been hard.

I hesitated, unsure what to play. Knowing how torn Sam felt about it, I didn't want to play Ana Incarnate, even though I loved it. I considered the pieces I knew, chose one, and placed my fingers on the keys, and all at once, what I had finally struck me: A whole lifetime ahead of me, with Sam, and music - no Janan, no newsoul-fearers, no souls being eaten to tug at my heart, no evil plots. Just life, and love, and music. Everything I had ever wanted and more.

The realization left me stunned.

"Did you forget how to play?"

Sam's voice snapped me back to the present. I turned around to see him coming down the stairs, smiling at me.

I smiled back. "Fingerprints," I joked. "I didn't want to smudge anything."

He laughed and went into the kitchen.

As he made coffee for himself, I walked back in to join him, leaving the piano for now. I glanced down at my mug and caught sight of one of my glowing scars, and something occurred to me. "Have Tera and Ash had their Rededication of Souls yet?" I asked abruptly.

Sam glanced back at me, surprised. "No," he said. "I'm not sure if…"

"They should both be reborn by now," I said, vaguely remembering the paths I saw when I gave up the light. I thought for a moment, then said, "I guess…there won't be any more Rededications, will there?"

Sam frowned, sitting down while he waited for the coffee to brew. "I guess not," he said. "I didn't think of that."

Suddenly, my coffee tasted bitter, and I set down my mug and looked down at my faintly glowing hands. "Most partnerships only last one lifetime," I said, more to myself than Sam. "People love each other during one incarnation, then stop when they're reborn. Now, no one will ever be able to find out if their love is for a matched soul, or…just one incarnation of flesh."

Sam's gaze went dark and distant, his five thousand years of life showing. "Maybe it won't matter anymore," he said. "If everyone only gets one lifetime, maybe love for flesh and love for a soul won't be so different."

"But it is," I said softly. "They just won't be able to tell."

He sighed, a hint of exasperation mixed in with the somberness. I understood how he felt, how talking about this ruined the most perfect morning. But it was a thought I just couldn't shake, a dark cloud that wouldn't blow past.

Then he said, "Well, we knew, when you hadn't even lived one lifetime yet."

My head snapped up. I'd thought that, too, but to hear him say it…it both lifted my spirits, and reminded me of how he'd said last night that he "thought" he would have still loved me if I'd been a boy this time. "Did we, though?" I asked.

Sam shook his head and smiled. "Ana, do you have to doubt everything?" he asked teasingly.

I forced myself to return his smile. "Well," I said, "maybe we should have a Rededication of our own."

I'd meant it as a joke, but as the words came out, I realized that I actually wanted to. Something to make this real, make my doubts go away. Proof that we really did love each other, not just in flesh but in soul. And surely, we qualified - we hadn't lived together for thousands of years, but there was more than just one lifetime between us.

Sam blinked, caught off-guard. For a moment, I thought he was going to say no. Then, incredibly, he smiled. "Maybe we should," he said, half chuckling. I couldn't tell if he was joking and laughing at the idea…or laughing at how, at one time, he hadn't believed in matched souls, and thought he would never be part of a Rededication as anything but the musician.

"Who's in charge of that?" I asked. "Like, who do you have to go to to have a Rededication…approved? Confirmed? Set up?"

Sam laughed and shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "Everyone always knew when Tera and Ash were going to have their Rededication, but I don't know how it got started."

I got out my SED. "I'll call Nima," I told him.

"The Speaker?" Sam asked.

I smiled. "If anyone knows what to do, it's her," I pointed out, "and she was supportive of me during my hearing and the ruling about Meuric."

Sam laughed. "You make friends with _everyone_, don't you?"

I couldn't help laughing at that, even as I started dialing on my SED. Then, I hesitated, and set my SED aside to look him straight in the eye. "Before I call…Sam…"

The laughter died from his face. "What?" he asked.

I took a breath. "If we…if _we_…have a Rededication of Souls…I don't want you to tell me or anyone else what you'll be going as, and I won't tell anyone what I'll be going as, either," I told him.

Sam broke eye contact uneasily. "Why?" he asked.

"Because we shouldn't need to," I said. I didn't want to voice the doubts that were suddenly plaguing me, but I wasn't going to back down on this.

After a moment's thought, to my relief, Sam nodded. "We didn't before," he agreed, and I knew he was remembering, as I was, when we had danced at Tera and Ash's last Rededication.

I smiled, then picked my SED back up. "I'll ask Nima what we need to do," I said. "I don't think it should be a problem, though…Like Stef said, everyone likes an excuse to party, right?"


	3. Rededication

Not only was our Rededication approved, the ceremony was planned and scheduled so quickly, it was almost as if it had already been in the works for years. Maybe, in a way, it was. Everyone knew us. Ana and Dossam, the newsoul and the One with the Phoenix Song, the duo who had led the charge against Janan…Newsouls, oldsouls who had been between lifetimes, even oldsouls who had been present on Phoenix Night were eager to see the final ending of our story. It was so completely opposite to how things had been when Sam and I were together before we knew anything about Janan, it was kind of funny.

The best part was that I could afford to laugh.

Everything happened so fast, there was hardly any time for people to choose and make costumes for the masquerade - and the ceremony could have happened sooner, if more practical-minded people hadn't pointed that out. People from all the settlements came pouring back in, and Heart was suddenly twice as bustling, newsouls begging oldsouls for help making costumes, oldsouls and newsouls alike making their purchases and crafting their outfits and masks - even Shadowsouls, the people who had been sylph for the past 5,000 years, became part of the crowd like any others. Nearly everyone was active…except me.

At Tera and Ash's Rededication, I'd dressed up as a butterfly, because of Sam's comparison about me being like a butterfly in that my life was fleeting, temporary. Everyone was a butterfly by that reasoning now, and I had gotten to experience rebirth; that costume wouldn't work anymore. I knew some people chose things at random, even that randomness can be part of the process of the two lovers finding each other, but considering that made me feel overwhelmed, because it meant there were just too many choices. I needed something that meant something to me. I already knew what Sam's costume would probably be: a phoenix. Even at Tera and Ash's Rededication, he'd been a songbird; given what we knew now, what else could he be? Not that I needed to know in order to find him on the night itself, it was just that, he _was_ a phoenix. The One with the Song. What did that make me?

Without any ideas, I went to the mirror. What was I? Instead of helping, my reflection just made me more uncertain, the face that wasn't mine that _was_ actually mine. In my soul, music came first, but it was the same for Sam - I needed something of my own, something that would both reflect me and hide me. I scoured my new visage for answers, inspirations, but at first nothing came. It wasn't like writing music.

This new, unfamiliar body…I was already taller than I'd been in my first life, and my body hadn't even finished growing. I felt like a young giant sometimes, being able to look people in the eye or even down at them instead of having to look up. And my eyes were so brilliantly, inhumanly blue - bluer than sapphires, bluer than the sky, bluer than…

Suddenly, something clicked in my mind. An idea began to form, a way to know for sure. Even as the vision materialized, part of me tried to stop it - it was a mean plan. Would he hate me for it?

Maybe he would. But if he could hate me so easily, then it wouldn't matter if he could find me in the masquerade or not.

~o~

Ana was very secretive about her costume - Sam never got a glimpse of her materials, barely heard a sound as she worked. He gave her her privacy, not nearly as offended as people might have expected him to be; he felt confident that no matter what she did, he'd be able to find her. He had never had to see her to know her. When the night came, as he donned his costume, plumes and streamers of reds, oranges, and yellows flowing from his body, he thought about everything that made her who she was.

The first thing about her was that she had been someone new. Flesh changed from generation to generation, but since the soul was the same, everyone in Heart was like family to him - different lifetimes brought different loves, different desires, yes, but everyone had been his father or mother, his sister or his brother, his son or his daughter, at some point, and that made courtship with them always feel off to him. Most people didn't care, but no matter what the flesh said, he knew everyone, almost too well. Ana had never been his anything before, she was someone different, someone to learn about and spend time with that meant something - someone he could be anything to, a clean slate where he could reshape his identity. On top of that, years before she was even born, he had started to feel like his own soul's purpose was coming to an end - he'd written music about everything and everyone, even about things he'd only heard of, and everything had music dedicated to it, written by his hand. His soul existed to make music, but what happened when there was nothing left to make music about? Everything was familiar, nothing was inspiring. Then Ana happened, a new person, a new experience.

From that came the second thing: that not only was she new to everything, but everything was new to her. Watching her learn, experience things for the first time, reminded him of the thrill of discovering the new, finding things previously unknown and comprehending them, a thrill he hadn't felt in centuries. Through her, everything was new again, everything had something to it that he hadn't seen before, something to inspire music. Life felt like life again.

The third thing was her passion, the way she was so dedicated to making every moment of her life count. Even when she'd only just escaped Li's abuse, and was afraid of people and emotions, there had been a fire in her that people just didn't have anymore. For her, a day's accomplishments were more or less akin to a year's worth of accomplishments for most other people. Not only that, but her own contributions, her new insights on things, added to the world faster than the world even developed.

Fourth was her courage and caring nature. Even though she'd believed a large burn from a sylph would spread and kill her, she'd voluntarily burned her hands just to save him - not even to save his existence, just to save him from the pain of death and a whole new cycle of rebirth, even though she didn't know what she was saving him from or even who he was. When more newsouls were born, she was their champion, crusading their cause and willing to go to any lengths and take any risks to defend them. She braved the Temple more than once, stood in front of people who meant to kill her, lured sylph away from others at her own risk, even faced down dragons. At the end, though she could have chosen immortality - as everyone else in Heart had, long ago - she instead gave it up, not knowing what would become of herself, not just for him, but for what she believed was right. If only a handful of oldsouls had shared her nature, who knew what Heart might have looked like by Phoenix Night? What new knowledge, new inventions, new ideas would have formed?

And fifth and last was what put their two souls in sync: music. Passion he'd once had, millennia ago, which had faded over time, burned bright and new in her, reminding him of himself, of what life meant to _him_. His soul had been playing a solo for so long, until she came, and made the music of his heart a duet, both of them singing of mutual loves and dreams. No one had really connected with him, understood him, like she had. Unions like what Tera and Ash shared had never made any sense to him before, because he hadn't felt what they felt - a sense of connection with another soul that went far beyond flesh - and had known he would never feel what they felt, since he knew everyone, and no soul had ever matched his. Then Ana happened, and it all made sense. His past loves felt shallow and petty, his doubts for the idea of soul mates ignorant and foolish.

Ana had revived his world, given him the world, and changed his world, all in a matter of months - fleeting moments to someone who had existed as long as he had. Everything from before her presence in his life felt empty; the idea of life without her was unbearable. It was as if he'd been waiting for her all those thousands of years, all his lives. As he fitted his shimmering, beaked mask on his head, his only wish for this night was to banish any doubts she might have that he felt the way he did. There was nothing else in the world he wanted that he didn't already have.

~o~

Out of respect for Ana's wishes for this one masquerade, most people actually managed to keep their costumes hidden; when Nima came on stage to announce the ceremony, she wasn't even partly dressed up yet. Sam's costume was the only obvious one in the entire party - but really, what else could he have been besides a phoenix?

"Flesh is transient," Nima said into the microphone - she'd had to completely rewrite the ceremony to suit the times. "For those of us who have experienced multiple lifetimes, we know that love can be just as transient, last only as long as a body. Even over the past five thousand years, rarely has romantic love transcended incarnations of flesh. Rarely. Some souls, however, came into this world as matching pairs - some, those who've lived many lifetimes; others, not. But for those souls who share this bond, they are drawn to each other regardless of their physical forms. Their love is pure and true.

"Tonight's festivities celebrate the commitment between Ana and Dossam. As they search for each other in this sea of unfamiliar faces, let us all remember that such love is not restricted only to those who walk this world in several different bodies, but is rather a possibility for all souls, old and new."

It was a very elegant rewrite, Sam had to admit - more or less perfectly true to the old speech, with changes only made where needed and kept both concise and thoughtful. Like a perfectly remixed tune, made for a slightly different event from the one that inspired it.

Then the music began, and people started dancing. Most often, he'd been the one playing the music, but the Rededication for Tera and Ash where he'd danced with Ana hadn't been his first time as part of the crowd, so he was comfortable among the partygoers.

As predicted, everyone knew him from his costume - the only comments on it were how beautiful (and, for those who had seen a real one, accurate) it had turned out, and how perfectly it suited him. He didn't dance with anyone, and no one tried to make him - this was his night, really, and no one wanted to interrupt.

But where was Ana? He looked around in the crowd, searching for her, trusting his soul to know hers. One or two people had dressed as butterflies, but he knew they weren't her at a glance; all sorts of colors and shapes filled the plaza, and only one would be her. None of the people he saw felt right, so he decided to take some time to look at the arrangement the archways were in for this ceremony, still keeping a lookout.

Even these arches, Sam had seen enough of to be confident that he'd be able to navigate through them, whether or not Ana would - the arrangement was always slightly different, but also always followed a certain pattern, so it wasn't really as chaotic as it might look to a newsoul. She didn't know that, though, and he knew she didn't know that; if she would be anywhere specific in this crowd, it would be around here, looking at the setup, trying to memorize it and worried about making even the tiniest mistake. She had that need to be perfect, to never fail even the first time, but it came from not knowing if she'd ever have a second chance at anything - people could probably do well to be more like her now that there was only one lifetime left for everyone, really.

Masked faces swarmed by, bodies danced around each other, some in groups, some alone. None of them looked right, felt right. At one point, Sam saw a costume that made his heart stop: a dragon, shimmering and golden. Why would anyone dress up as a dragon at _his_ Rededication? Maybe they were a newsoul, he reminded himself, not everyone in the world knew his troubles with dragons so thoroughly anymore…and dragons _were_ beautiful creatures, that had been his own thoughts on them the first time he'd seen them. He tried to let it go.

Pieces of music began and ended, some songs, some waltzes, some sonatas…all of it his, nothing written by anyone else played. No, wait, not all of it - at one point, somehow, one of the pieces Ana had written played over the speakers. He hadn't known anyone had ever recorded her playing that one…but after listening for a little while, he realized it was someone else playing it, as people did his music. That made him smile; she was probably overjoyed to hear it, to know that her music was as highly thought of as his.

If only he could find her…!

And that dragon…from the moment he saw it, he couldn't stop thinking of it, never lost track of exactly where it was in the crowd. Was it really just a random, hapless newsoul who didn't know his story? Surely it was…but he couldn't get it out of his head. His eyes kept finding that glint of gold in the sea of colors. Why was he _looking_ for it? If anything, he should have been trying to avoid it, but after about an hour, he realized he was constantly gravitating _towards_ it. Why? Was he angry? No, no he wasn't…what, then? Was it…?

The dragon was dancing with a rooster just then, and something about the way the feet moved in time with the waltz during a certain triplet struck him like a stone hitting him in the head. It couldn't be…

~o~

I tried not to be embarrassed walking to the center of Heart in my shining costume. Anyone who saw it and knew anything about Sam would be appalled, I knew - I would, if I were one of the ones seeing this from the outside. But I'd braved much scarier settings before, faced mobs and real dragons and Janan himself; this was nothing.

Nima's rewrite of the Rededication speech was perfect, and the fact that she didn't don her costume until after it was made meant a lot to me. Then the music picked up. I had already seen Sam, glowing in all shades of brilliant orange and red and yellow halfway across the plaza, nearly as radiant as a real phoenix. There was no doubt it was him - I knew, from looking, it wasn't someone paying homage to our legacy, it was Sam. He just had to find me.

It felt wrong to dance with other people here, knowing who my partner was and this being our party, but if I avoided dancing with anyone else, and he happened to see, that would be a giveaway. Blending in was crucial here. Some time had to be spared to look at the arches, though - they were in a different arrangement to how they'd been at the only other Rededication I'd ever seen, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to memorize it well enough to make it through blindfolded. Hopefully, Sam was familiar enough with the concept, even if he'd never actually done it before…but leaving something up to someone else made me nervous, even if that someone else was Sam.

_Dance,_ I told myself. _Blend in. Try not to seem like you're fixated on him, act like just another partygoer._

My costume was, if nothing else, a conversation starter - some of my friends, and what felt like every Shadowsoul in existence, came up to me and asked if I knew what I was wearing; I had to avoid speaking to them as much as possible, I didn't want one of them telling him either, and I didn't feel like explaining right now, though I knew I would have to after the ceremony was over. Those who didn't know me at all, though, I could talk to, and give evasive answers. Oldsouls and newsouls alike danced with me, none of them suspecting who I was, or at least I hope they didn't.

Music passed, all of it Sam's, interestingly. After a while, though, I was surprised to hear a piece that I wrote being played over the speakers - I'd never recorded playing any of my pieces, so someone else must have played it to be recorded, like people have Sam's music. I couldn't resist grinning under my toothy mask; it was an honor, to have _my_ music played right alongside Sam's, as though it were equal in merit - words couldn't describe the joy that filled me, to know that there were people who felt I'd matched that beautiful music I'd stolen from Li that had kept me alive through eighteen years of abuse. But I kept it to myself as best I could, and danced on.

Half an hour went by…an hour…an hour and a half…Would he never get it? I tried to stay calm, to keep up the facade, but as the moon moved across the night sky, I got nervous. He should have found me by now…

And then, while I was dancing with a newsoul who'd come as a rooster, a hand reached out and took mine. Even through my golden glove, I felt him, and I knew. That made me equally nervous - was he mad? My cheeks started getting hot as I slowly turned to face the phoenix, our gazes meeting through our masks.

"Ana?" he said softly. "Is that…you?"

"I'm sorry," I whispered, hoping he could hear me. "I had to know."

He looked at me, up and down, and I couldn't quite read his eyes. Then, suddenly, I heard a laugh escape his throat. "Only you would think of this, Ana," he said.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked.

For a moment, he was silent. Then, his shining mask shook back and forth. "No," he told me. "I understand."

Of course he did. He always did. The knot in my chest loosened, and I could breathe again.

"Come on," he said, taking my hand again. "This is our ceremony, and it's almost over; we have things to do besides dance."

"Oh Sam, I…I don't know if I'm ready to try the arches," I stammered.

Even though his face was covered, I could see him smile. "I know," he said.

~o~

Putting on the blindfold was scary, almost as scary as Janan. I couldn't afford to get this wrong. It was supposed to be symbolic, but I couldn't stop thinking about how Tera and Ash had missed one of the arches one time, the pine boughs representing health, then got sick and died soon after. Death was permanent now. What if I let the same thing happen to us? When everything was black, Sam's hand found mine somehow, and I relaxed a little. Just a little. We were together. There was nothing we couldn't do, even if things went wrong.

I took a step. We'd aimed ourselves at the first arch, so we didn't need to worry about directions just yet. Sam moved beside me. Another step. Another. I gripped Sam's hand so tightly, I hoped I wasn't going to break his fingers.

The first arch. Obsidian. Night. I felt a bit of my costume bump into one of the sides, and I froze, alarmed - I'd thought I was going straight forward.

"It's okay," I heard Sam murmur. "We're through."

"Which way now?" I asked nervously, turning my head in the direction of his voice.

He hesitated. Of course he did. "Right," he said at last. "You lead."

I turned so that he was behind me, and we took a few more steps. Even though it was probably a bad idea, I tried not to go straight, instead straying a little to the left, hoping I'd run into the flower arch - it wasn't much further than the obsidian one. A rustle told me when my costume brushed the flowers.

"Here," I said. "But…are we at the inside, or the outside?"

"Inside, I think," Sam said. "We didn't go too far."

We went around the flowers I'd touched, hoping we were going through the second arch. Now came the part I'd been scared of: we had to turn around. Luckily, Sam led now. I focused on not tripping, and ended up lagging a bit. Sam's hand started pulling me, and he stopped.

"Sorry," I gasped. "I don't want to fall."

"It's okay. I'll slow down." And he did.

A few moments later, I thought I heard another rustle. "Here," Sam said. "It's right in front of me."

We took a step to our left, a few steps forward, and turned right. We were through.

"The next one's not that hard," I remembered. "Ahead, and to the right."

For some reason, having gotten this far gave me confidence, and I moved faster. Sam did, too. When we got through the arch, I felt the top of my mask brush against it.

"There," I said. "Now we turn around…"

"You studied this," Sam commented, a bit of laughter in his voice. "I knew you would."

Of course he did.

From there, it was almost easy. We almost never disagreed on which way to go next, and when we did, it didn't last long. Back through the fifth, around and forward through the sixth, back for the seventh, forward through the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh…and the twelfth, at the top of the stairs. I knew to take off my mask the moment Sam let go of my hand, blindfold and all. When I turned back, I saw that we'd really done it.

I looked to him, grinning. His face, exposed now, matched mine. This was real.

Sam threw the phoenix head down the stairs into the crowd. Just remembering, I did the same with my own mask - I'd never asked about why couples did that, but I had a lifetime to find out. A cheer erupted as the glimmering masks fell into the crowd. Maybe I imagined it, but it sounded louder than the one I'd heard at Tera and Ash's Rededication. I wanted to cheer myself.

Nima stepped up from behind us as everyone started taking off their masks. I'd never seen how a Rededication ceremony ended, and hoped I didn't have to do anything else.

"Tonight, these two souls have found each other, and found their way, without their flesh to guide them," the Speaker declared. "We of Heart recognize their bond, a bond that transcends lifetimes, a bond that transcends all mortal trappings. Ana and Dossam…" She turned to us, and smiled. "None can deny what you share. May this life you spend together be long and happy."

The crowd cheered again, and they were definitely louder this time. Sam swept me up in his arms and kissed me, with everyone watching. I didn't care.

When at last we broke apart, Sam muttered to me, "That speech used to be a lot longer, officially granting Janan's blessing. I'm sorry you didn't get to hear it."

I could only laugh. He laughed, too.

No more Janan. No more of anything his existence meant. And now, no more doubt. Just one lifetime, with Sam, and music. I couldn't ask for more.


End file.
